5 Ways to Simplify Anything

Simplicity is your superpower in a world gone disruptively crazy and complex.

For nearly four decades, I’ve consulted with and coached leaders across the globe, and spoken to hundreds?of thousands of people — always focused on making things simpler for them. Here are five?ways that you, too, can be Mr. or Ms. Simplicity in your life, work, and relationships…

1.?Practice Disciplined Empathy and Common Sense

Simplicity is based on very basic human needs: Could this app be made easier to use? Could this medicine container be made easier to open and easier to read and understand? Can making a bank deposit be made easier? The first step to making most anything simpler is to walk a mile in the user’s/ audience’s/ customer’s shoes. And, as part of that, focus on the basics.?

Making most things simpler doesn't require a massive systems overhaul. It’s often about making each small step in?the process easier.

And that begins with empathy, compassion, and a dose of common sense, practiced from the?receiver’s?perspective — your ability to appreciate, validate, and be empathetic with someone else’s experience. Karen Armstrong, winner of the 2008 TED Prize for her Charter for Compassion, shared: “I’m supposed to be Miss Nice all the time… It’s hard, I don’t always succeed…But we all must strive to live the Golden Rule.”?

Whether we call it Customer Focus, Design Thinking, User-Centeredness, or something else, Simplicity always revolves around one thing — the Golden Rule.

2.?Ask Just One Question

Steve Jobs was correct in his belief that customers can’t tell you what they want when it relates to innovations such as the first iPod or iPhone or iPad. Most people have difficulty seeing beyond What Is to What Could Be. But most complexities that people encounter can be addressed by simplifying something that already exists. Ask your user/ audience/ customer just one question —?“How can we make this easier for you?”?— and you will quickly learn what simplicity looks like.

From there, you, the innovator or problem-solver, can create something that goes far beyond relieving their current complexities, to simplifying their life, joyfully. (See Step 5 for more.)

3.?Always Start with Time Poverty and Attention Deficit Disorder

Yes, there are bigger, more systemic, more entrenched problems that need simplification. For example, I currently help Life Sciences clients transform how they bring new life-saving drugs to market. Creating disruptive changes in a regulated environment where risk-management is crucial — (people’s lives are at stake) — is a very complex change process. You too, I’m sure, encounter big, hairy, difficult, complex challenges on a daily basis that need simplification.?

But always remember one thing: Every individual, including those with very big, very complex problems, only gets 1,400 minutes in every day. Time and attention are among everyone’s most precious personal assets.?

If you focus on saving people time?and on using their attention wisely, you will never?go wrong. These are among the first two challenges that will always?benefit from simplification efforts.

4.?Always Give the End-User More Control

The more control that the user /audience/ customer/ patient has over using your product or service, the simpler it will be for them. Period. (Assuming you have diligently practiced Steps 1 and 2!)

5.?Joy and Great Experiences Beat Pain Reduction

This may sound counter-intuitive. Whether the person we’re serving is a customer, patient, user, or senior executive, they all express their needs the same way — as a problem, difficulty, or challenge that needs to be solved. Most people?describe simplicity in terms of pain reduction. e.g., “This?medicine bottle cap is too hard to open.” or “I hate how long it takes to download this.”?

Your job is to push past that because,?in the end, while people describe simplicity in terms of things?they want to reduce, change, solve, or get rid of… what they really crave is joy and amazing experiences with your product or service.

Back to Steve Jobs: “Our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, ‘If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, 'A faster horse!'’’ People don't know what they want until you show it to them. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.”

That’s the amazing power of simplicity —?provide not just a solution to a problem, but something that?truly excites their senses!?True simplicity makes people feel awe, surprise, joy, relief, excitement, and so much more!

Bill Jensen?is Principle, Strategy/Life Sciences, at IQVIA.?Leading IQVIA's Applied Change Management Center of Excellence, Bill is author of nine best-selling leadership and change books, including?Simplicity, Disrupt, The Courage Within Us, and?Future Strong. He's also a Top 10 global keynote speaker on the future of work and digital disruption. Reach him at [email protected].?